How to Present Yourself Online

Written on 09 March 2018.

How you present yourself online is an all-important component for your personal, and business, brand. On this week’s The Money Show with Bruce Whitfield, Pavlo Phitidis shared some of his best online business tips:

Using LinkedIn

There’s a right, and a wrong, way to profile yourself online, and these have a direct effect on whether you get the call to come in for an interview. We’re currently looking to fill 13 positions within our company, and as I scrolled through potential candidates’ online business profiles, I noticed several concerning features which made me wary of how we, as business owners, go about employing based on profiles.

Positioning yourself on LinkedIn

Your online business profile should be on LinkedIn. As a portal for recruitment and sharing business-related information, it’s an essential. Make sure your online business profile has a professional photograph, a short biography, and that you’re regularly interacting with people, content, and communities online. Your biography shouldn’t focus on what you want; it should focus on what you can offer to a growing business.

How to use LinkedIn

But it’s not enough to just list yourself; you must keep your information up to date, interact through the platform, and share information relevant to your industry, sector, and occupation too. Avoid sharing personal anecdotes, selfies, or similar content, through your LinkedIn profile.

Your digital footprint

This is far more important than many people realise – your digital footprint leaves a trail across the internet that can be traced back to you. Your online activities are linked to your online business profile, and therefore, linked back to who you are as a person. Potential employers inspect digital footprints, and it’s crucial to keep your LinkedIn profile focused on your professional life.

Don’t fake it until you make it

Potential employers don’t only rely upon your online business profile, and neither should you. Submitting a Curriculum Vitae (CV) and covering letter still forms an important part of the recruitment process. A covering letter that responds to the job description as listed in the advertisement is an essential; if a potential employer can’t see evidence of you having understood and engaged with the listed job description, your application will, most likely, move to the bottom of the pile. Checking and verifying experience, qualifications, and references, will take place, so don’t feel tempted to fake anything, to give yourself an upper hand. This will not pay off, and you’ll only be doing yourself a disservice.

Aurik helps business owners build their business into an asset of value. We’ll help you implement an effective recruitment method, so you can find the right kind of people for your business.